Hospital Readmissions After Implementation of a Discharge Care Program for Patients with COVID-19 Illness

BACKGROUND: The surge of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) hospitalizations in New York City required rapid discharges to maintain hospital capacity. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether lenient provisional discharge guidelines with remote monitoring after discharge resulted in safe discharges home for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 illness. DESIGN: Retrospective case series SETTING: Tertiary care medical center PATIENTS: Consecutive adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 illness between March 26, 2020, and April 8, 2020, with a subset discharged home INTERVENTIONS: COVID-19 Discharge Care Program consisting of lenient provisional inpatient discharge criteria and option for daily telephone monitoring for up to 14 days after discharge MEASUREMENTS: Fourteen-day emergency department (ED) visits and hospital readmissions RESULTS: Among 812 patients with COVID-19 illness hospitalized during the study time period, 15.5% died prior to discharge, 24.1% remained hospitalized, 10.0% were discharged to another facility, and 50.4% were discharged home. Characteristics of the 409 patients discharged home were mean (SD) age 57.3 (16.6) years; 245 (59.9%) male; 27 (6.6%) with temperature ≥ 100.4 °F; and 154 (37.7%) with oxygen saturation < 95% on day of discharge. Over 14 days of follow-up, 45 patients (11.0%) returned to the ED, of whom 31 patients (7.6%) were readmitted. Compared to patients not referred, patients referred for remote monitoring had fewer ED visits (8.3% vs 14.1%; OR 0.60, 95% CI 0.31–1.15, p = 0.12) and readmissions (6.9% vs 8.3%; OR 1.15, 95% CI 0.52–2.52, p = 0.73). LIMITATIONS: Single-center study; assignment to remote monitoring was not randomized. CONCLUSIONS: During the COVID-19 surge in New York City, lenient discharge criteria in conjunction with remote monitoring after discharge were associated with a rate of early readmissions after COVID-related hospitalizations that was comparable to the rate of readmissions after other reasons for hospitalization before the COVID pandemic. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11606-020-06340-w.